Day: March 24, 2006

Jerry Pournelle (always worth reading. Always) has some interesting observations about ADHD… again (search his site for more).

“If children do not learn self-discipline in school, when and where will they learn it? …If boys don’t learn to take charge of themselves in school, and in Scouts, and without drugs, then what kind of men will they be? Our neighborhood lawyer found himself in middle age after “suffering” from ADHD all his life; and having found himself not only quit his job and became a bum living in his mother’s basement, but is now demanding that his wife sell the house so he can get his share. If this is finding oneself, staying lost seems preferable, for he is no longer a man at all.”

There’s more here, including the correspondent’s remarks that elicited Dr. Pournelle’s comments.

As a side note to Dr. Pournelle’s comments, when I was teaching and had a few students “diagnosed” (whatever that meant at the time—different strokes for different folks’ different ways on different days, as it were—with ADD/ADHD, I noticed the kinds of behavior modifications Dr. Pournelle talks about in his brief disquisition. When one (or more) would “forget” to take the meds that literally drugged them outa their (own) minds, they could and did learn to moderate their behavior in my classes. One or two instances of “or else” were usually enough. A firm hand, “the look” from me and… well-focused student.

Drugging kids (mostly boys, of course) out of their minds is not the answer, in most (approaching all) cases. Nor is giving adults an excuse to be babies.

Writing “I will not throw chalk” on the blackboard 500 times at The Real Ugly American.

And yeh, I know: don;t call you Shirley.

*sigh*

Anywho, y’all having fun with trackback spammers? Anyone? OK, now, riase your hands. Who has gotten over 1,000 trackback spams in the last day or do? Anyone? Else, I mean.

OK, you can put your hands down, now. (I wasn’t paying attention anyway,)

I need to send a nice email out to the guy who developed Spam Karma. Great lil plugin. Only two of 1,013 1,021 1,031 spam trackbacks (just checked;and again; it’d changed. twice, while writing this… so far) in the last 20 hours got through its filters. Three false positives (removed from the number above).

Not bad. The number of SPAMs—total, including your run-of-the-mill comment SPAM—Spam Karma has caught and nuked in the last five weeks is only about five times as many as in the last 20 hours or so. Somebody’s being a very bad boy (boys–or girls–actually) but I have several of the biggest offenders’ IP addresses logged, and am thinking long and hard on their fate…

So, a question: what circle of hell do SPAMMers belong in? What would be your fantasy method of arranging their transfer to that location?

It’s NOT trackback SPAM at Stuck on Stupid’s Weekend Trackback Party

Yep, this is an Open Trackback Alliance open post. Please link to this post and track back (LINK) all weekend long. Do see the foot of this post for a link to the Open Trackback Alliance for information on how you too can host linkfests and to Linkfest Haven for links to other blogs hosting linkfests this weekend.

And now, “We Need to Stop Pussyfootin’ Around, Folks”

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Just this week, I have read on otherwise Right-thinking blogs evidence that Islamic terrorists and terrorist-enablers are winning the war of words, the war of the mind.

Let me give you three paraphrased examples of lies about Islam that are far too widely accepted and even given byes by those who ought to know better (and no, I’ll not spefically name bloggers, cos that would be an unecessary embarrassment to them, IMO).

Mohammed taught that coercion of belief is not right, quoting Mohammed in Surah 88:21-22 as saying his god had told him coercion of belief was not his task, was wrong, BUT Mohammed’s entire life was an example teaching violence, murder, rape and enslavement as a means to expanding the rule of Islam. Who is the true follower of Mohammed? The one who follows what Mohammed said or the one who follows what he showed his followers to do?

The question answers itself.

Another blogger has said that if Islam is to legitimize itself as a religion that it ought to purge itself of the elements who do violence against non-combatants (commit terrorist acts) in the name of allah. But to do that would be to purge Islam of Mohammed! And once Islam has purged itself of the most brutal, violent, vicious and evil example it has (Mohammed) what do they have left? His testimony as the prophet of his allah would then be invalidated, and there could be no Islamic religion!

Continue reading “OTA Weekend Open Post/We Need to Stop Pussyfootin’ Around, Folks”